Modern enterprises expend substantial capital to maintain an IT infrastructure. In the computer realm, there is a continuing shift from initial deployment costs to ongoing maintenance costs. Traditionally, a computing infrastructure was marked with substantial up-front costs due to the high cost of computing hardware and memory resources. However, with the ongoing trend of reduced costs for computing hardware, and the converse trend of increased compensation for skilled personnel to support and maintain computer systems, a typical enterprise spends more to maintain a user then the cost to initially outfit the user. Consistent with a trend known in the industry as “Moore's law,” computing power per dollar continues to double roughly every 18 months, while support costs, such as help desk staffing, software upgrades, and hardware enhancements, continue to burden the cost of provisioning a user.
This shift from acquisition to maintenance has provided a motivation for “overprovisioning” a user. The classic overprovisioned user is the high ranking, non-technical executive who requisitions a PC that is more powerful than any subordinates, yet is employed only for reading an occasional email. Nonetheless, the above stated trend brings the reality that is may be less expensive to initially overprovision a user than to later remedy an underprovisioned user. However, enterprises may not have the resources to optimally provision a user such that the user is neither overprovisioned or underprovisioned, and continue to bear the burden in the form of responding to and upgrading an underprovisioned user or absorbing the inefficiency of an overprovisioned user. For a substantially sized enterprise with many users, such as corporations, universities, and other enterprises, the aggregate cost can be substantial